Sandhya and Bonnie's Excellent Adventure

LA Chicks


Luna Park

In another attempt to get fired from work... I am going to document my fantastic trip to the City of Angels instead of working this morning.

There is so much to tell! Good friends, good food, and good fun. Starting out with flying first class to LA Thursday night (Sandhya is a Gold Elite OnePass Member). I was never cool enough to fly first class before... let alone sit in seat 1A - real glasses and silverware? flight attendants calling me sweetheart?

Anyways, on to the important stuff. Thursday was basically shot by the time we got in and got our rental car - a sky blue Chevy Aveo (a glorified golf cart)... and got to our questionable hotel on the Sunset Strip.

Friday - sat in on a UCLA law class (contracts) with Sandhya (the one who is motivated enough to consider higher education). Class was interesting... but more interesting was the IM conversation between the two girls that I was sitting behind. Somehow, they were brilliant enough to absorb information about complicated case law while chatting about hollywood breakups and hookups... talking trash about classmates... and surfing facebook profiles. To top it off, about an hour into the class I saw one girl type "I think there are visitors sitting behind me. Do you think they can read what we're typing?"

After UCLA, we drove to the Disney lot in Burbank where Andrew works - grabbed lunch in their fabulous employee commissary - went up to Andrew's office in the animation building. This part of the trip also marked the first quasi-celebrity sighting - walking from the visitor parking lot, we passed Jennifer Hall (HBO's Unscripted). After chowing down and meeting the office folk, Andrew sent us on our way. We went to The Grove - shopped and searched for the elusive Corner Bakery.

Friday night brought the real excitement. Sandhya and I got dolled up (pictured above) - waited for her friend Tracy to pick us up from the hotel - she unfortunately got lost (she's only been in LA for 1.5 months), but we got to the restaurant right as Andrew, Jason, and Missy were being seated. The food and drinks at Luna Park were great (mmm... breaded pork chop and pomegranate cooler). The company was fantastic too, but Tracy and Missy were too tired to go out with us. Now it was just the fabulous four. Andrew and Jason were kind enough to take us to The Highlands (straight territory), but we must have looked good as two couples because the bouncer asked Jason if we were on the guest list (the answer was no)... then he proceeded to pull us out of the line and let us in. I felt special - we were singled out of the crowd. The music was stellar - hip hop without repeats (especially Janet Jackson and LL Cool J)... and there was plenty of space to dance! FYI - Andrew, Jason, and Sandhya - all great dancers.

Saturday - tried to sleep in, but my crazy aunt called. After we really woke up, Andrew and Jason took us to The Abbey for lunch. Again - fabulous (mmm... chopped chicken sandwich w/ apples and oranges). Also site of second quasi-celebrity sighting - Gedde Watanabe (Long Duk Dong - Sixteen Candles) - Andrew and Jason actually had a conversation with him since Andrew knew his boyfriend.

Andrew and Jason had to do work after that, so they pointed us in the direction of Melrose for some more shopping (Jason's words of wisdom, "pee before you go"). Sandhya and I did some hardcore shopping on only 2 blocks of Melrose - we didn't even get to the main section. Time for third quasi-celebrity sighting - Dr. Ray (plastic surgeon from Dr. 90210) - he walked past us looking sort of confused.

Saturday night included eating at Buddha's Belly (mmm... spicy peanut noodles and lychee cooler) with Andrew, Jason, and Missy. After dinner we went to Lava Lounge - tiny bar that supposedly used to play hip hop music, but was apparently the site of a battle of the bands type event we were not aware of. We only stayed for the first act - Chow Nasty (Joe, Zac, and Damon from SF). They played one song for 15 minutes - although I think they thought they played 6 or 7 - the only one they introduced was called "Tale of Two Titties". We probably would have left earlier, but seeing as how the bar only held literally like 10 people, we were only a foot away from the band... and we tried to stay a bit longer before vacating the "front row". Jason didn't feel too well, so we dropped him off at home before heading to our second spot (although my secret theory is that he went home to build that second guest bed from scrap). The remaining 4 - Andrew and his hoes - went to White Lotus (almost a former Hollywood hot spot at this point). To sum it up - bouncer looked like Sean Connery and Burt Reynolds' love child; Missy had to pee; dance floor was too crowded; drunk dancing Asian guy was competing with dry humping guy for most amusing/scary clubgoer; Tom Green walked past us (fourth quasi-celebrity).

Sunday - woke up from a restful night (we had moved from the Best Western to the Lanham-Wang Resort Saturday). We attempted to go to Toast for lunch, but perhaps it was the post-marathon traffic that shattered that dream. Halfway there we altered courses and ended up at LaLa's - still excellent (mmm... Ensalada Melrose).

Next, I tagged along with Andrew and Sandhya who were going to take a hip hop dance class at The Edge. I had a little window to sit in front of to watch them dance to 50 Cent (felt like a cross between a proud parent and a peeping tom). They were by far the two best dancers in the class!

The late afternoon brought a lot of lounging around and lack of showering on my part (I'm not intentionally dirty - just poor planning + laziness). After watching the L Word, waiting for Jason to get back from tennis, and mutiple conversations with Mr. Brad Butler, we headed out to dinner at ChaChaCha (I guess they like repetition in LA). Poor brain functioning and Asian instincts led me to make Sandhya mad at this point - but it was still a lovely dinner (mmm... pork chops). Plus Brad was quite entertaining with his stories of Beer Pong.

Andrew and Jason had to go home after dinner - Andrew had an important interview Monday (haven't found out about the outcome, but I have a feeling things will work out). That left Sandhya and me in the capable hands of Brad and his less reliable little white Honda (no A/C meant no ability to defrost the windshield which meant a lot of kleenex wiping to see anything on the road). We went down the street to Daddy's and had some pleasant conversations in a dark booth (until Chris Katan's deranged twin accosted Sandhya).

That basically sums up everything. I had a fabulous, fabulous time (except for the pissing Sandhya off part). Andrew is an amazing friend! and Jason is just as great! You'll never meet two more generous, funny, and patient people. Missy was absolutely entertaining and Tracy was super nice. Then there's Brad, who is absolutely hysterical. And finally, Sandhya - we make a great team indeed. Overall, everyone was way too witty and intelligent for me.

Thanks again for the fun times guys!